er note of
summons, and Betty, who had taken hers as a friendly invitation to have
tea with her friend, went over to the Hilton House alone and in the
highest spirits. But Miss Ferris was not serving tea, and Dr. Hinsdale
showed no intention of leaving them in peace to indulge in one of those
long and delightful talks that Betty had so anticipated. Indeed it was
he, with his coldest expression and his dryest tone, who introduced the
subject of the initiation party and demanded to know why Madeline Ayres
had neglected Miss Ferris's summons. Betty had no trouble in explaining
that to everybody's satisfaction, but she longed desperately for
Madeline's support, as she listened to Dr. Hinsdale's stern arraignment
of the innocent little gathering.

"It's not lady-like," he asserted. "It's aping the men. Hazing is a
discredited practice anyhow. All decent colleges are dropping it. We
certainly don't want it here, where the aim of the faculty has always
been to encourage the friendliest relations between classes. The members
of the entering class always find the college life difficult at first.
It's quite unnecessary to add to their troubles."

Betty listened with growing horror. What dreadful thing had she
unwittingly been a party to? And yet, after all, could it have been so
very dreadful? If Dr. Hinsdale had been there, would he have felt this
way about it? A smile wavered on Betty's lips at this thought. She
looked at Miss Ferris, who smiled back at her.

"Say it, Betty," encouraged Miss Ferris, and Betty began, explaining how
Madeline had happened to think of the hazing, relating the absurdities
that she and the rest had devised, dwelling on Ruth Howard's clever
impersonation and Josephine Boyd's effective egg-scrambling. Gradually
Dr. Hinsdale's expression softened, and when she repeated Carline
Dodge's absurd retort, he laughed like a boy.

"Do you think it was so very dreadful?" Betty inquired anxiously,
whereupon her judges exchanged glances and laughed again.

"There's another thing," Betty began timidly after a moment. "I don't
know as I should ever have thought of it myself, but it did certainly
work that way." And Betty explained Georgia Ames's idea of the
hazing-party as a promoter of good-fellowship. "It's awfully hard to get
acquainted with freshmen, you see," she went on. "We have our own
friends and we are all busy with our own affairs. But since that night
we've been just as friendly. That one evening to